Northern Europe 2019, day 2: Reykjavík (day)

Mom—Anna smuggled the dog stuffy in her suitcase! It’s one of those IKEA dogs 🐶 .

Elsine: Oh My…Stuffy will be happy to see her Home Land…

Elsine: Nice bedroom…is that a stuffie in Anna’s bed, or did you pick up a puppy along the way…

Cheryl: So we went to bed around 4:30 with the hopes of sleeping through the night. Not surprisingly, that didn’t happen. Casey and I woke up at 9:00 and went back to bed an hour later. Anna awoke at midnight, so she and I have been up together for a couple of hours now. I am hoping we can sleep again around 3:00am so that we can be somewhat alert tomorrow. This is a picture of Anna’s room around midnight.

I have been wondering about how dark it will get while we are here. This was taken around midnight looking to the right of our entrance. You’ll notice that it is fairly dark, but there are also a lot of clouds tonight.

Elsine: Beautiful!

Casey and Anna dropped me off in downtown Reykjavik this morning. I am meeting up with a walking tour group at 10:00 am and they are headed to a farm about 30 minutes away for horseback riding. We were looking for a quick coffee for Casey but couldn’t find anything open because of the holiday, so Casey settles for an energy drink. Anna was happy with convenience store hit chocolate.

Anne: What no coffee? Love the pic of Anna and Casey.

I meant, “some time to kill”!

Cheryl: I have done tune to kill so I walked around a few minutes. There’s a cruise ship docking at the port here; it looks massive against the city buildings. This is a shot of new and old Reykjavik buildings.

Yes! I found an open cafe. I think the owners are Middle Eastern…there’s baklava and some other exotic pastries, as well as Middle Eastern music. The place is new and bright and relaxing. I ordered and Aleppo coffee and it came in a small metal pot (perhaps bronze) and the man poured it at my table. It smells like cardamom and pepper…it’s really good! I’m happy to have a proper amount of caffeine.

Elsine: Lovely!

Here are some pictures of buildings from my walk around Reykjavik yesterday. One of the beautiful sights in the city is the colorful paint on some of the homes and businesses.

allison: So beautiful!

Elsine: street lights have interesting shapes…

Elsine: streets and sidewalks look extremely clean…is that the norm?

8-6-19: My walking tour yesterday, through Your Friend in Reykjavik tour company, was relaxed and informative. Our guide was Icelandic and, of course, had a beautiful Icelandic name which was totally unpronounceable to me. She said her name translates into Snow Fairy, so we could just call her that. She said most Icelandic names have some sort of fairy or elf or some natural/mythical creature in them. We started the tour in Ingolfur’s Square, which is a major part of Icelandic legend.

These are the two stone pillars that represent the wooden pillars thrown onshore by Ingolfur Arnason in 871 AD. This is how the settlement was founded! You’ll notice the steam coming up through the metal pipes; that’s the natural thermal vapor coming from the earth.

From my tour yesterday: The oldest tree in Iceland! Our guide had us guess its age, and I was closest—120 years. Apparently, most trees do not live past 80 years.

Traditionally, homes were built using corrugated metal siding (with an inside layer of wood). Because the metal looked so drab in the dark Icelandic weather, people used deep, bright colors to add some cheer.

As you can see, the paint really does create a striking “pop” of color.

Our guide recommended trying this Reykjavik-produced beer, Einstok, which I gladly did later in the day!

Laura: Skál! 🍺

Another blast of color!

Elsine: WOW, Fantastic color! Love the picture…

Entryway to the museum. I had my reservations about going down, but I also had my 6’5” husband with me…so we gave it a try!

The pond in Reykjavik. Our guide said it used to be bigger but the city built up around it in order to control flooding to the buildings nearby. There are lots of ducks and tour groups congregating around it.

It is! There’s very little trash on the ground and I do think the paint colors make a difference.

Anne: These are beautiful pictures, Cheryl. It looks so bright, cheerful and clean!

Cheryl: A building along the pond.